Learning Experience

This week we have continued immersing ourselves in the story ‘Bonkers about Beetroot’ by Cath Jones. We have heard from lots of you how your children have been excited by this book and have been talking to their grown-ups about it - with lots of them also trying beetroot for the first time! This week we made a giant ‘picture train’ showing all the images from the story so that the children could easily see the key parts of the story - the beginning, middle and end. The children then worked in pairs to create their own story maps – we were very impressed with their work and their collaboration skills!

In our environmental area, some of us have been weeding and digging over our flower and vegetable beds, and preparing our polytunnel ready to plant some seeds. If any parent or grandparent has any seeds or young plants going spare, then we would be very grateful for them to plant in our growing area.

Maths

In Maths this week, we have been developing our subitising skills - where we see a small number of dots, fingers, or images, etc., and can instantly recognize how many there are.

We have been adding two numbers together using different methods, i.e., counting on from the first number and using a number track to count on.

To link with our theme of ‘growing’, we have been using cubes to compare lengths and heights which are less than, the same as and more than.  

Lego Discover – Playmakers Session 5

This week the children were challenged to invent or replicate a game for some of the Duplo characters to play. We had many wonderful creations, such as a game of tennis and a water beach ball tournament! The children had to make rules for their game, e.g., no pushing, no splashing, and you must take it in turns. They then had to explain the instructions of the game to others, e.g. First you have to …. Then you ….

We are really impressed with their teamwork - it is so wonderful to see the children’s collaboration skills growing! They had to work as a team of 3 or 4 to make this so there was a huge amount of negotiating and compromising so that everybody was able to contribute to the ideas and to the final outcome. Well done, children!

Six Bricks Today is a very exciting day as your child will be bringing home a complimentary set of ‘six bricks’!

 We have posted some information about this on Seesaw, along with some ‘six bricks challenges’ for you and your child to work on together at home.

Home Learning

Six Bricks - Please watch the Six Bricks Information video and enjoy taking part in some of the challenges together. We would love to see some photos of you completing the challenges and hearing your thoughts!

Storytime - Mrs Clague has recorded the ‘Bonkers about Beetroot’ story for you to listen to and enjoy. Your child will know some of the familiar phrases in the book and so will be able to join in. We have also explored some of the higher-level vocabulary in the story such as ‘doomed’, ‘scowled’ and ‘manure’ – see if your child can tell you the meaning of some of these words.

Phonics and reading – Enjoy reading your phonic and reading books. Please remember to bring in your book bags each Friday so that we can swap your reading books. (Library books will continue to be changed every Monday or Tuesday so you will also need your book bags then too.)

Messages

If you are reading this newsletter on the SchoolNews App, please also remember that you can view the full version on the school website – this will contain lots of the photographs from this week’s activities.

From Mrs Bastin, Mrs Clague and the Foundation Stage Team